


a constellation of tears

by xerampelinae



Series: the hope suite [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Marriage of Convenience, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 14:27:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11853474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae
Summary: Imperial Science Medical Shuttle R-1 prepares for departure and Jyn listens to the radio chatter through Bodhi’s comm. Her hand grasps her mother’s pendant and her mouth moves wordlessly as Bodhi makes the request for authorization.-Eadu, Scarif, and beyond in a world that Rogue One survives.





	a constellation of tears

Eadu goes like this: in an Imperial shuttle produced by the Partisans, a team of pathologists arrive to inoculate the highest-profile members of Advanced Weapons Research on-site. During the process, Lead Researcher Galen Erso has an adverse reaction to the vaccine and is transported off-world for greater medical support.

The truth of it is this: between their departure from one planet and arrival on Eadu, the pathologists are replaced by Cassian and Jyn, flanked by K2SO. Galen Erso is sedated and treated with pharmaceuticals to simulate an adverse medical reaction. 

Up through the securing of Galen’s hospital bed onboard the shuttle, the only issue is when Jyn’s stolen trousers, marginally too short and significantly too tight at the hip, tear as she squats to fasten the bed in place. Luckily the Storm Trooper escort is already departing and Jyn’s expression is easily hidden by the physician’s mask she still wears, but she remains awkwardly standing in the medbay until Cassian returns and removes his own stolen mask. For a moment his face is blank, then he breaks into laughter that sends Jyn scowling to return to her own clothing.

“I can’t believe my trousers split at the seam in the middle of this,” Jyn says to Bodhi on her meandering way back to the medbay, laughing joyously if belatedly at the situation. Then she’s back in the medbay with her unconscious father, laughter vanishing, and Cassian’s looking at her with concern. He doesn’t stand up from his seat by Galen, which is its own offer to keep her from being alone with a man she doesn’t know anymore, not necessarily. Jyn sends him off with a smile and a tip of her head; it gets into his head if he stays in character too long. She must face the overexposed portions of her past alone sometimes.

-

Imperial Science Medical Shuttle R-1 prepares for departure and Jyn listens to the radio chatter through Bodhi’s comm. Her hand grasps her mother’s pendant and her mouth moves wordlessly as Bodhi makes the request for authorization.

The universe seems to hold its breath and around them the Force intensifies with the fervent, repeated prayer.

“R-1, you’re cleared for departure,” Jyn hears. Relief shudders its way through and out of her in a nervous, faltering laugh.

-

Galen Erso wakes slowly in a cramped bay of a shuttle. It must be a medical bay, he thinks, as he watches the field hydration system pump slowly into his veins, steady as the tide of his blood within and moving with it. It’s no balm for the dryness of his throat and mouth but Galen contents himself with the shuttle’s innate rhythms; it has been a very long time since he has been aboard a spacecraft. Krennic forgot quickly enough that Galen had already run once, but the rest of the Empire forgot less quickly.

Blinking his eyes open, Galen realizes he is not alone. He is not even alone with someone of visible Imperial loyalty. Instead, there is a woman--young--settled in the corner in what is probably considered humanoid civilian garb, if utilitarian in styling. Her face and build are familiar.

“Jyn?” asks Galen, and the woman blinks at him. Another might look between the pair of them and note the similarity of their eyes--in shape and in color--but all Galen sees in that moment is Lyra, perched in the window of their home on Lah’mu, in Coruscant against the glitz and glimmer of the city. Then Lyra vanishes and it’s Jyn wandering out of bed in Coruscant, seeking his company to drive away the nightmares. “Stardust?”

“Hello, Papa,” she says.

-

It turns out that the medical team Galen thought was attending him is actually his daughter and her team. Jyn was the assistant, and the tall man, less broad of shoulder than the lines of the stolen physician’s jacket suggested, is her husband. It is a strange duality that strikes Galen now: Jyn married young to an older man, though Cassian is far closer in age to her than Krennic. Jyn is safe from Krennic; he will not make a far too young bride of her.

Jyn’s husband stands to leave and even in the cramped space of the medbay moves easily through Jyn’s space. It is as if, Galen thinks, they orbit one another, aware of and drawn in by the gravity of one another without catastrophic collision.

Cassian is not gone long before the bay door eases open again.

“Galen,” Bodhi Rook says, eyes moving between father and daughter and back again to the father.

“Hello, Bodhi,” Galen says.

-

Galen meets the last of Jyn’s team later: two Guardians from the holy city of Jedha. The younger of the pair--Chirrut, Galen thinks--cocks his head as they face one another.

Only after the room has emptied of everyone but Galen and the Guardians do they really speak. Galen lingers in the medbay bed and Chirrut perches in a chair nearby, Baze facing the door like a sentry but clearly listening attentively.

“You are ill,” Chirrut says, quiet. “You have been for a long time.”

Galen closes his eyes, breathes. “Yes,” he says finally.

“You will have to tell her,” Chirrut says.

“Not yet,” Galen says. “Let her have some time without it hanging overhead.”

“Do not wait too long,” Baze says. “You both will regret it.”

Galen nods and doesn’t protest.

-

Galen is first scanned when he is taken aboard the shuttle, then again on an Outer Rim planet before the Rebel Council is comfortable enough to receive him. Then his days turn into prolonged hours of meeting with both the Council and its engineers. His evenings, when free, are spent with Jyn and her family. His nights are spent in a housing section not far from the Medbay, population selected with the unspoken rule of those with long-term health issues. It is not a small section. Its occupants will fight until they can fight no more. Galen will be no exception.

-

“I am so proud of you,” Galen says, “and so happy to have this time with you that I never expected to have, however short it is.

“Papa,” Jyn says, face twisting with grief. This is what it means to be orphaned twice over: the first loss of her parents on Lah’mu, then Saw’s faltering arm of protection, and now this, the second loss of her first father. The grief is not lessened in its anticipation.

“Stardust, sweetheart,” Galen says. “You have built a family. Without me, you will not be alone.”

“I know, Papa,” Jyn says, weeping, and he gathers her into his arms while he still can.

-

The Rebel Strike goes like this: the greater part of the Rebel Fleet swarms the partially-constructed Death Star while a select strike team targets the Imperial Science Archives to retrieve the plans and otherwise destroy its records.

Jyn and Cassian get in and out of the Archives with limited issue; with the aid of Rebel Intelligence planning, the infiltration goes without so much as a drawn blaster. And then a strange moon appears in the sky--the base’s radio chatter bursts into a clamor at its arrival before easing back with a director’s direct authorization.

With a glance, Jyn and Cassian communicate the realization that the Death Star has moved overhead and that the Rebel Fleet has not yet begun the attack. Immediately they move to complete the data retrieval and withdraw. They sweat under the synth-wool of their stolen uniforms and under the unsuspecting gaze of the Archive’s officers until they reach the elevator and begin their exit strategy. 

Overhead the Rebel Fleet drops out of warp and begins its assault. Blue Squadron leads and begins with targeting the launch bays of the Imperial Fleet--few TIE fighters escape the bottleneck created by the destruction, and those that do fall into dogfights without outnumbering the Rebels.

Aboard the Death Star, Director Krennic forgets the plans he’d come to Scarif for. His magnum opus is complete enough to fight with; this unknown fleet will surely be devastated by an unknown superweapon. They do not even know where to target to stymie the Death Star’s TIE fighters. This, of course, is when the hammerhead corvette drives into the Death Star’s muzzle, a juddering blow despite the difference in scale that sends Krennic staggering.

“Sir,” a member of the bridge crew says, once he’s steadied himself, “systems reboot required to assess functionality. Life support functional. Primary weapons offline until assessment completed.”

“Initiate a weapons systems restart,” Krennic says, drawing himself back up. “Are the launch bay doors offline?”

“No, sir,” the officer says.

“Then scramble the TIE fighters,” Krennic spits.

-

“I don’t like this,” K2SO says in the helm of their stolen shuttle. “You are wearing Imperial colors, the chances of being taken out by friendly fire is astronomical. That doesn't include the chances of accidental Imperial fire.”

“We can try sneaking by,” Bodhi says, eyes darting through the viewing port, “or we can request an escort. Either way, we’ll have someone’s attention.”

Hostile or friendly he doesn’t say. In their company it is too complicated an equation, even without the stolen crest, even without the integrity of their loyalty: Imperial defector, forced collaborator’s daughter, Rebel Intelligence agent. They are forever branded with those assumed loyalties. 

“Jyn?” asks Cassian.

She draws the kyber crystal from beneath her shirt, thinks as she cradles it. “Get on the comms,” she says. “Hail our people.”

“This is Rogue One calling any Alliance ships that can hear me,” Bodhi says into the comms, “can anyone hear me?”

-

They get their escort. Red 5 guides them until he darts away, tailed by a TIE fighter, panicked but still urging them onward. The radio chatter is brimming with urgent reminders and requests for aid. Rogue One moves forward, weaving defensively. They’re already entering warp when they take a hit and the klaxon begin to raise the internal alarms.

As the stars turn from distant specks to passing striations, the shuttle shakes with impact, lighting up with frantic alerts and flying shrapnel. They’re still alive after the warp, but that’s more because of the atmospheric field than the shuttle hull’s structural integrity.

They are at the rendezvous point, dead in the water as Bodhi hails for aid, face lit up red by the alerts. K2SO is running through a systems check, deactivating what he can and running diagnostics--if they’re caught like this, if they’re taken for hostiles--everything will be for naught. If he can get them up and running again, Jyn thinks, if the chances are not spent.

Cassian stirs slowly against the harness on his chair. Jyn struggles for his hand, just brushing it.

“Jyn?” Cassian says, hand automatically taking hers as he returns to alert.

She doesn’t have the breath for words and so squeezes his hand. Then Cassian is turning to her and looking.

“Jyn--” Cassian says, fighting his harness, trying to free himself without letting go. There is a shallow cut leaking blood down his cheek. Jyn fights to keep her breathing steady. Swallows the pain. There is a hole in the hull starboard-side where they took the hit--where she and K2 sit--and she can feel its shrapnel in her. Blood spills down the long graze of her thigh into her boots. A long shard of durasteel settles between the straps of her harness into her torso.

“--request for immediate, urgent medical aid,” Jyn hears Cassian say distantly. She lolls in the harness, trying to focus on Cassian. There is a split second when Bodhi glances back and then he's back to hailing the outpost. 

Cassian’ hands are shaking but sure as they investigate. The durasteel pierces through her, she can tell, can feel the grind of it against her ribcage, the back of the chair as she shifts.

“You're going to be strapped in a bit longer,” Cassian says, gently squeezing her shoulders. “We'll have you out soon, quick as you like. But until then I need you awake and your eyes on me, okay?”

“I know,” she manages, breathless. Then Cassian is ordering K2 to put pressure around the shrapnel, himself wrapping the long scratch on her thigh. It hurts enough she can't mask the cry of pain, even though she tries. 

“Cassian,” Jyn says when she can, grasping at his sleeve. “If they follow us here, if they come for the plans--you need to go without me.”

“Jyn!” Cassian and Bodhi say at once.

“We’ve all done too much to let hope die with me,” Jyn says gently, for Bodhi. She knows what the shadows in Cassian’s eyes mean. He can do what needs to be done as much as she can, and if it hurts? They know what must be done. 

Bodhi turns back to the comms and continues to attempt contact. Cassian slips his sleeve from Jyn’s hand and takes it into his own, gentle the way the pressure of his other hand is not and cannot be. He kisses her hand. Jyn shuts her eyes against the sudden burn of tears this brings. And finally, finally, Jyn feels Cassian nod, mouth brushing her knuckles with how close he stays, how close he _will_ stay until they must go. 

Jyn is quietly grateful that Baze and Chirrut are not here, that they will not have to live with leaving her behind too. There is also the selfish part of her that is happy to have Cassian and Bodhi here, even K2. That part she smothers with the ruthless understanding that their survival without her will hurt them.

“K2,” Jyn slurs, fingers fluttering in Cassian’s hold in an attempt to gesture. K2 must have been struck by the shrapnel first: a deep groove has been scored into his torso.

“It will keep,” Cassian says, taking in the damage with only a cursory glance. “Jyn--I need you to keep your eyes on me.”

Jyn tries to nod. The cold is starting to seep into her and it’s weighing her down. Her eyes want to shut, let her rest just a little while. She hears the desperation in Bodhi’s voice ease into relief and a distant ship seems to grow in the viewport as it finally, finally makes its approach. And then she’s dipping under the weight of everything and into the black.

-

Jyn wakes up when they try to remove her from the chair, a pained noise strangled before it can leave her throat. That does not catch the extraction team’s attention, but it does catch Cassian’s, and he alerts someone behind Jyn. In quick order there’s an analgesic hyposprayed into her neck and the tide of pain recedes.

Then there's the sound of a sonicsaw behind her. “Keep still,” a stranger's voice says, guiding Cassian away. Then the saw makes contact and Jyn is gritting her teeth against the heat bleeding through the durasteel chair.

Cassian is the safest thing to watch in what remains of the helm. Bodhi and K2 have disappeared; in their place are an anonymous team cutting her free, efforts luckily numbed. Jyn looks instead to Cassian, who is there looking back at her.

Like this, Jyn has time to learn Cassian’s face, if only to divert her mind from what pain remains and the visceral nature of current rescue operations. The stubble is already rising up from the close shave Cassian had made for his disguise. Despite the rarity with which he shaves, he'd managed to avoid nicking his throat. He had had to borrow shaving foam from Baze, which would have been odd if you did not know it was Baze who kept Chirrut’s head and face cleanshaven, just as it was Chirrut who kept Baze’s hair neatly braided. 

The cut on Cassian’s cheek has dried into a rusty smear already, but the air is always so dry shipside with the recycling of environmental elements. The shadows circling Cassian’s eyes are deepening, his eyes too-full of something that Jyn can not quite understand, not yet.

Then the stranger running Jyn’s extraction dips back into view. “We’ll be able to move you soon,” they say, and it must be true, the vibration of activity behind Jyn has all but faded away. “But before we begin, we’d like to confirm some details.” 

Jyn manages a nod, barely. 

“You are Liana Hallik?” 

A nod, eyes steady on the stranger.

“And this is your husband, Aach?”

A nod.

“Very well,” the stranger says. “We will entrust him with decisions on your behalf through the crisis. If there are no further questions, we will proceed.”

Jyn shuts her eyes and tries to take several steadying breaths.

“Nurse, we’ll need Master Hallik here removed before we start.”

Jyn catches at Cassian’s sticky, bloodied hand and then he is gone and hands are grasping and lifting her and pain washes once more over the analgesic.

-

She wakes briefly--eyes fluttering and her hand reaching out--in a tank of strange, warm fluid. Her eyes do not sting and her chest no longer aches as she breathes through the mask strapped into place. A dark figure looms closer but it moves familiarly through the blurred glass. Jyn slips back into unconsciousness and feels more safe than frightened.

-

Jyn is awake when they drain the tank. The blurs keeping her company resolve into the familiar shapes of Rogue One--she thinks they're being called that now, remembers Bodhi saying something along those lines--and the familiarly unfamiliar shapes of medical staff and droids. As time passes and Jyn spends more time alert, she learns to find Cassian in the shadows of the med bay’s night cycle, rarely in the day cycle, and often sleeping restlessly in a nearby chair.

The drains are at the bottom of the tank; without the buoyant support of the bacta, Jyn finds herself collapsing weakly. There are arms that reach out and catch her before the floors do. Jyn flinches but relaxes after a moment, recognizing Cassian’s familiar hold, gentle but firm as he waits for her to recognize him. As soon as she does, he’s wrapping her up against the shock of the shipside chill and drawing her close. 

“Bodhi?” Jyn murmurs into Cassian’s throat.

“Fine,” he says. “The others as well.”

Sighing, Jyn presses closer. To be in the bacta tank for so long is a strange experience: even heated, the enclosed space is somehow alienating. Jyn finds herself craving still more contact in a way she’s never admitted to. Behind Jyn, a droid speaks in a language that she does not have the energy to translate.

“Jyn, I need to put you down. The droid wishes to examine you.”

She sighs again and reluctantly uncurls her hands from Cassian’s collar--when had they reached out and latched onto Cassian? It seems Cassian has the same reservations for letting go, as he lingers before retreating a pace. At that distance, Jyn can see the clinging damp transferred between them when he caught her. She feels strangely protective of the visible traces she leaves on Cassian’s life.

The droid coaches Jyn through a series of deep breaths and through her first steps since the shuttle. It's as hard as when she first trained under Saw, as hard as breathing was when she missed her parents so, so much, when her body wasn't busy aching. The first moment like peace Jyn had in those days was after weeks of drilling, when Saw had sent her and others to stop a squad of Storm Troopers; if you had not been there, you might not believe a handful of children with sticks could wipe out as many Storm Troopers. Jyn had stood there in the settling dust with a pair of batons and forgot the way her mother had fallen and not gotten up.

With Cassian there, Jyn feels less the wounded predator, licking its injuries in a forgotten cave, snapping at whatever curious and hungry creature scents her out. 

The droid completes its sequence and urges Jyn back to bed. It disappears briefly for a dry change of clothes for Jyn and Cassian, disappearing once more with the clear expectation that they will both spend the night in the medbay. Jyn is already exhausted, leaning into Cassian and trusting his support; for his part, Cassian helps her towel dry, brusque but gentle, then slips her out of the minimal covering she'd worn in the tank and into a loose gown that he wraps snugly about her. Then he's helping Jyn into a bed tucked into the corner. He hesitates for a moment before changing and climbs into the bed alongside Jyn.

“You look tired,” Jyn says, fingers tracing lightly below his eyes. Cassian sighs and relaxes into her touch. “You used my name.”

Cassian nods, hair brushing over her fingertips--too long, soon they will have to draw straws over who will trim it down; Jyn will inevitably, inexplicably, be the one holding the short straw, despite cheating--before blinking open his tired eyes.

“We are aboard an Alliance ship,” Cassian says, “we were picked up by the daughter of a member of the Council. They keep my days full.”

“And your nights?” Jyn asks softly.

He grins wryly at that. Settles on his side of the bed, sheets pressed with the line of his body.

“Thought you might be enjoying your own sleeping space,” Jyn teases, mouth wry.

“You might say that I should know how to sleep by myself by now, and I can--but my wife, it's hard to sleep away from her.”

“I hear your wife lurks only where it's cold as Hoth and hunts her food down on foot,” Jyn says.

Cassian’s eyes are shut now, but his mouth moves sluggishly still. “Must've been where we met,” he says, then his mouth is slack with sleep.

Jyn’s mouth softens into something like a smile and she settles back into the mattress. They sleep as they often do: side by side, fingers tangling. For one night, at least, they pass the night dreamlessly.

-

Chirrut and Bodhi come in the morning, after Cassian has dressed and disappeared, to collect Jyn.

“I hope you are ready for more roommates,” Chirrut says, “we are moving.”

With Chirrut’s help, Jyn is up and out of the bed; with his arm laced with her own, she's managing the long corridor in her bare feet.

“Bodhi?” she asks hesitantly. 

“Jyn?”

“Where are my shoes?”

“Ah,” Bodhi says, gesturing. “back in the--”

“Alright,” Jyn says. “We'll just--keep going. Alright?”

Bodhi and Chirrut nod and Jyn pretends not to feel the cold plasteel underfoot. 

“Whose ship are we on?” Jyn wonders aloud.

“Senator Organa of Alderaan. I hear she is the Queen's daughter.”

“Oh,” Jyn says, not sure what to think of this. She allows herself to be towed down one hallway, then the next.

“An admirable leader. I hear she can face down General Draven.”

“I respect that,” Jyn says sagging against Chirrut progressively, then the long hall finally terminates at a door that Bodhi is opening. Baze is there suddenly, picking her up as easily as he might a child, and lifting her up onto a high bunk. He forgets to shut the screen but Jyn manages it before she falls back into her side of the bunk.

“Sleep, little sister,” she hears Baze say, and it carries her down to a deep, dreamless sleep.

\---

“You did not tell me you moved her,” Jyn hears Cassian say, fingers stroking the crown of her head. He's on her side of the bed, but she's made some encroachments on his side.

“That was K2’s job,” Chirrut says. The bed shifts as Cassian turns to give K2 a betrayed look. Jyn rumbles into a faceful of bedding.

“What was that?” Cassian asks.

Jyn lifts her face, squinting grumpily at the roomful of her friends and, now, roommates. “Go to bed or you'll see if you married a tauntaun-eater or not.”

Past Cassian’s shoulder, Jyn can see Baze grasp Chirrut, withdrawing with an understanding nod to the further bunks. Bodhi pops up, pats Jyn’s knee, and disappears back into the lower bunk. All that's left is Cassian, smiling indulgently down at her.

“Yes, Mrs. Wampa Andor?”

“That's milord Darth Wampa to you, Captain,” Jyn says. 

Distantly, Bodhi pipes up with a “Yes, milord.”

“That would explain this evening,” Cassian notes, finally lying down.

“Mm?” Jyn says, already preparing to continue the sleep cycle with an optimized temperature.

“Ambassador Organa asked to meet the last of the team.”

Jyn is asleep before she can respond.

-

Realistically, not-quite doubling the number of people housed in their berth increases the ambient noise and conflict of too many people in one space. And it does, but not in the way Jyn expects. By the time Jyn and Cassian transition in, Bodhi and the Guardians have grown accustomed to the idle chatter and prayer of the other party. And for the most part, K2’s snark is unremarkable, even if he resents having to take the bunk below Chirrut and Baze.

None of them are unused to shared living space: Jyn and Cassian in their childhood careers as soldiers, Bodhi as a cargo pilot and trainee sharing a dormitory with a handful of other pilots, Chirrut and Baze as orphans taken in by the temple. It is hardest for Jyn to sleep without a blaster at hand in company until their presence is familiar, but this develops while she sleeps away the recovery that the bacta couldn’t quite manage.

Walking comes back quickly. The clinging weakness following Jyn is more the energy drain of recovery than anything; movement recovers strength, and except for a breathlessness not unrelated to the lung punctured by shrapnel, Jyn easily makes it to the canteen with the rest of Rogue One. 

The others find little ways to reassure themselves of Jyn’s recovery; Chirrut pats her shoulder as he moves alongside her, Baze enfolds her in snug, warm hugs, and Bodhi sits at the end of her bunk while they chat, occasionally darting in for quick hugs. Cassian sleeps alongside Jyn, holding her hand, though he'll lift her up into a hug on returning from missions. The first hugs are often the hardest, Jyn finds, but she reaches out for her friends just as much as they do. It's something she forgot she could have when her mother died, and exhilarating to have again.

Jyn’s first mouthful of caf in days marks the approach of Alderaan’s ambassador.

“I hope your recovery, Liana Hallik,” Leia Organa says.

“Thank you, Ambassador,” Jyn manages with relative grace due to past, repeated exposure to Mon Mothma. Mothma has a strange tendency to seek out and greet Jyn when they are both on-base.

Leia dips her head regally. “If it is convenient, I would like to meet with your crew today.”

Jyn’s gaze flickers back and forth between Cassian, who cocks his head and shrugs subtly, and Leia, who is waiting patiently. 

“We can do that, Ambassador.”

-

“Listen, Jyn,” Cassian says hesitantly, fingers curled around her wrist, “Draven has his own agenda for the plans. I did not realize it until the Senator declined to surrender the plans. The Council is split, for now.”

“What do you think he's planning?” Jyn asks, rather than _How do you feel_ or _He's been your commanding officer longer than I've known you_ or anything other than the mercenary truth they must deal in.

“I think--I think he thinks that it is a weapon that can be used against the Empire. Not a tool of senseless evil of untold capacity. A necessary evil.”

Jyn thinks of her father, making her promise that she understands, that he does what he does for her, and nods.

-

Jyn learns the costs of the Battle of Scarif in fragments. The planet is all but lost, having taken the impact of several Star Destroyers. Half of Blue Squadron was lost running the offensive strike. Several fighters in Red and Gold Squadron were also lost. Ten percent of the overall Rebel Fleet was lost in the battle, due to having trapped most of the Tie Fighters in their launch bays. 

The Death Star was held back for the most part by a hammerhead corvette, which went down with its entire crew but caused visible damage to the partially-constructed station; when hearing of this, Galen Erso had commented that it was an unconventional, if effective strategy. And then he quietly died, having heard that the Death Star plans had successfully been extracted and that Rogue One was evacuating with no fatalities.

It seems they gain so little and lose so much. Bodhi and Jyn sit together, numb and unweeping, and wonder what next will be lost to them.

-

“We can cut to the chase and admit what we know,” Leia says. “Captain Andor, Jyn Andor--your married name, I assume--Bodhi Rook, Baze Malbus, Chirrut Îmwe. Leia Organa, daughter of Bail.”

“You could use Rogue One,” Bodhi says, absent-minded. “It would be faster.”

“It would,” Leia says. Bodhi startles as he realizes that he'd spoken aloud.

“What are you getting at?” Cassian says, before Bodhi can get any more flustered.

“I need an escort for a mission,” Leia says. “Before we return to base or Alderaan. Your crew was recommended.”

Bodhi makes a thoughtful face and nods. Baze reads Chirrut’s posture and cocks his head agreeably. Cassian turns from the group to assess Jyn, who nods as well. “Very well.”

Leia nods, fierce-looking. Jyn wonders if someone told her that she could not hope to complete whatever mission it is, and if they are part of a spite-inspired plan. If that’s the case, Jyn thinks, she hopes it’s Draven being spited.

“What’s the mission?” Jyn says belatedly.

“Finding an old ally of my father’s from the Clone Wars.”

-

Leia takes Baze and Chirrut with her when she reaches Tatooine, which marks Rogue One’s tendency to cycle through pairs and groups escorting Leia according to necessity. Most often it is Jyn or Chirrut and Baze accompanying Leia; too often, Cassian disappears on extended missions, with K2 and Bodhi as support if Command can be convinced. Only rarely can Command be convinced to send Jyn as well; they are reluctant to send her, even after so many years, unless the situation is truly dire. 

In a sequence of events that will never satisfactorily be explained, Leia returns with her escort, one former Jedi Knight fresh from exile, and a farm boy. It’s hard to say who is the most unexpected arrival.

Chirrut glows with excitement--perhaps he is not a Jedi, but he is Force-sensitive, and he is delighted to think of a future where Jedha’s temple is consecrated once more--while Baze grumbles about not liking slavers. Leia is silent on the topic. The new arrivals keep to themselves, and are wholly unconcerned by the manner of their recruitment by the time they grow comfortable on Leia’s ship and with Rogue One.

-

Leia’s ship returns to Yavin IV with a man she calls General Kenobi, but her farm boy calls Ben. The Death Star is destroyed in an air battle over Alderaan involving the remainder of the Rebel Fleet, Luke Skywalker, and a black market smuggler that he met somewhere around Tatooine. Krennic and several other high-ranking members of Imperial Command are considered to have gone down with the Death Star; no shuttles or escape pods are released, at least. Jyn is surprised by the relieved tears this produces. Cassian continues to sleep side by side with Jyn; she finds that more comforting than any words.

Bail Organa delegates more of his duties as a member of the Rebel Council to his daughter as he directs the rebuilding of his home world. Rubble from the Death Star showers onto Alderaan like a comet’s tail; it is less than the destruction of Scarif, but no few die.

Leia returns to Yavin IV more determined to fight the Empire than ever, Luke and Obiwan in her wake. Away from twin suns of Tatooine, Luke's hair darkens to Leia’s shade. 

-

“Do you see it?” Cassian asks. Luke offers a pilot’s helmet and his lightsaber to Leia. She laughs but accepts both; with the barest bit of hesitation she begins the exercise Luke had been trying. Obiwan is quiet.

The lightsaber moves in Leia’s hands and the lasers deflect.

“Yes,” Jyn says. “I see it.”

-

“Ben says to trust the Force,” Luke says dazedly one midday cycle when he wanders onto the lonely stretch of viewing deck that Jyn is occupying. He drifts about the ship when he’s not training with Obiwan Kenobi or spending time with Leia. “I knew--something--when I met Leia. Like I’d been missing something. I don’t know what it was. She doesn’t know either. At least she understands what I mean when I say that,” he says, laughs.

Jyn thinks of meeting her father again after so long. How he knew her. How he loved her still in the simple way he had as when he could still carry her. “Sometimes you can recognize something, meeting again after so much time and change. It doesn’t make sense always but. My mother used to say to trust the Force too.”

When she looks at him again, Luke is looking back. Really looking, as if he can sense the undercurrents to her words.

“Sometimes I think my uncle Owen would have kept me forever on the farm, always waiting until after the next harvest. I think I would have stayed, even with Ben asking, except Leia came. And after that my uncle told me I should go, it’d be better to come with Leia. Not safer, but better.”

“How’s life in the stars so far?” Jyn asks.

“I wanted to leave so much--” Luke says, hesitates, “--I never expected to miss it so much.”

“I wasn’t born on a farm,” Jyn says, “but for a little while I grew up on one. Moisture farming. I’ve always wondered, if things had gone differently, whether I’d have been satisfied spending the rest of my life on it.”

-

Obiwan dies facing down Darth Vader. Luke is hit harder than Leia, at least in terms of what can be seen. He wears his grief visibly, but he was her teacher too, he was her father's friend from long ago. 

Leia and Luke wear their sorrow in their different ways but they have never looked more similar. And people are beginning to notice.

-

“Can you imagine going back, after the war’s over?” Luke asks one day. The viewing ports are covered with storm shutters while a comet arcs by, trailing spacedust. There is little to focus on except each other and what they carry. He is think about fighting. It fills his mind unwillingly; he wonders sometimes if the war will end, if there will be anything left after the end. He wonders about those friends and enemies who make their graves in forgotten stardust. He wonders if he will ever fit back into the places he was desperate to grow out of. If it will be the same and unable to comprehend how he has been changed.

Jyn thinks. “Some days it’s unimaginable that we might reach the day’s end,” she says slowly. She might have said more, but Captain Antilles is walking on-deck, looking for Luke, and Jyn is soon alone with her thoughts.

-

“What will you do after the war’s done?” Jyn asks Bodhi, hands deep within a ship’s engine as he walks her through replacing some fluid or another. Again. 

“Open skies, open starspace. As long as we have that, I can be happy,” Bodhi says. “Are you narrowing down the list or are you looking for additions?”

“I hadn't started yet,” Jyn says with a developing sense of derealization.

“Well, easy steps,” Bodhi says, nonplussed. “Chirrut will probably embrace whatever you choose, but Baze will want to make sure we only have our lord Darth Wampa as the Wampa menace in our lives. Cassian will want to be the only rogue around--us aside--so, forget anywhere near a cantina. The inner portion of the outer rim might give us space to build but close enough to visit in case Luke gets the Princess into trouble. K2 will present very unfavorable odds, but he's not the only who can run analysis, so.”

Jyn has the sudden realization that her life is not exactly what she thought it was.

“No ice planets,” Jyn says finally. “Ice is okay, but not,” she pauses, “Hoth.”

“Force, no,” Bodhi says. “The Rebellion couldn't pay me enough.”

-

“Force damn it,” Bodhi says, when Command issues the relocation notice. Jyn doesn’t even laugh, wondering instead if it's worth group sleeping arrangements for the warmth and shared thermal blanketry. 

-

It is.

As they say, Hoth is too kriffin’ cold.

-

Baze speaks for himself and Chirrut when Jyn asks: “I think it is time for a new home. To find somewhere without old ghosts.”

Jyn nods, a sudden grief caught in her throat. She knows now that one day she will leave the Alliance, but never for Lah’mu. She has ghosts enough as company already.

-

“What are your thoughts on Bodhi’s post-war plans?”

Cassian jumps. K2 looks steadily at Jyn. “In the event of the resolution of the Galactic Civil War in the favor of the Rebel Alliance, there is a 42 percent chance that Bodhi Rook’s extended plans and contingencies will be successful.”

“That,” Jyn says, “is a lot greater chance of success than Bodhi expected.”

“What,” says Cassian. 

-

“Really,” Jyn says, “what are your plans? Bodhi delegated bed calculations to me and he’s getting impatient.”

Bodhi lets out a small snore at close range and Jyn and Cassian breathe as quietly as they can in the half-minute it takes to assure them no one else is awake.They are in bed with literally three other humans because a) Force, it’s cold, and b) they’re on kriffing Hoth. Bodhi is wearing a little hat, flaps down over his ears. Chirrut is all but swallowed by cloth; his face is tucked somewhere in the vicinity of Baze’s armpit, and if nothing else, it’s warm. K2 is lurking somewhere in the command center, where the temperature is more controlled and fewer humans to tolerate, only the nightshift.

Jyn and Cassian like side by side, hands tucked together. Jyn waits, patient now.

“Trees,” Cassian says, so softly that Jyn strains to hear. “I want there to be trees.”

“Okay,” Jyn says. “Trees, and open skies. No ice planets.”

“No,” Cassian laughs, breath clouding. “No ice planets.”

-

“Here we are,” Bodhi says, after Endor, after the second Death Star, after Leia has told them, _find something like peace_ , after Cassian has made Leia promise to find them if she has need of them again. Jyn makes Luke promise to hold Leia to her word.

There are trees here, like Endor. Tall evergreens that cast deep shadows that ease the summer heat. Winter will bring snowfall, but nothing like Hoth or the ice planet Cassian was born on. There are no deserts here, no monsters out of haunting memory. There are others here, but no cities. They build their home into the mountainside, delving deep enough to ease their soldiers’ fears. 

“What does it look like?” Chirrut asks.

“It looks like the first sight of the Temple, returning from escorting pilgrims,” Baze says.

“Like clear lines to open skies,” Bodhi says, eyes casting out. Chirrut hums.

“Like peace, or something like it,” Jyn says.

“Like home then,” Chirrut says.

“Yes,” Cassian says, “welcome home.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1.Title comes from Fall Out Boy’s My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark, “A constellation of tears on your lashes/Burn everything you love, then burn the ashes/In the end everything collides/My childhood spat back out the monster that you see”. Series title comes from the Rogue One theme Jyn Erso and the Hope Suite.  
> 2\. I came up with and wrote the Darth Wampa bits while on lunch break at work. How did they come up with Darth Wampa? Probably wampa were the bigfoot (ayy PNW) of Hoth until Luke took a Wampa to the face. And by that point the name had kinda stuck. And was still appropriate. Somewhere out there, Luke has accidentally called Jyn Darth Wampa to her face and neither realized until way too late  
> 3\. This story has turned into, “Rogue One survives and retires to Space Canada. Up next: General Organa gets the old crew back together. Are there more random Force-generated babies? Contraceptives And Scientists Hate This Mysterious Force.”  
> -Also kudos to my dad for the 6+ times he watched Rogue One with me, and then watching Episodes IV to VI with me while I was sick. I'm still kind of sick guys.  
> 4\. You guys are so awesome. Seriously. I wasn’t sure about writing anything to follow up “gravity in a starless city” and then the response to it was so amazing. So. Thank you. Hope this measures up to the first despite the difference in tone.  
> +1 apparently I'm so tired that I posted without including a summary. Oops. Bed for real now,


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